Iconic items from Tower Tee auctioned off; where did they go?

ST. LOUIS – It's been called the end of an era in St. Louis. The landmark Tower Tee golf course, driving range, mini-golf, and batting cages have shut down. They’ll be replaced by 150 new homes.

Tower Tee’s iconic signs and statues were just sold at auction Monday, but they're already popping up around St. Louis.

Let’s start with the Tower Tee’s namesake: the giraffe named Tower that once adorned a hole on the mini-golf course. It sold for $1,200 and now sits in a south St. Louis County backyard. We’re still waiting to hear the new owners’ ultimate plans.

We’ve learned the future of the Tower Tee memorabilia cover the spectrum.

“From just a guy who just wants to have a green in his backyard to commercial golf courses to folks who just want to have something to remember Tower Tee,” said auctioneer Dean Wilson. “There’s one man that’s going to start a miniature golf course in Richwoods, Missouri.”

The man who paid $4,400 for the Statue of Liberty from the mini-golf course plans to install it at a nursing home to lift spirits there, like Tower Tee did for St. Louis families for more than 55 years.

The mini-golf course’s Phil the Gorilla went for $1,200. It’s now part of a front yard zoo of animal statues in French Village, Missouri.

And Delmar Loop developer Joe Edwards paid $700 for the Blue Rhino from the mini-golf course. It just seems to belong at his Blueberry Hill restaurant in the Loop.

“Tower Tee was important to so many people’s lives. That’s why it was important to me to go out there and buy something to still have it here in St. Louis,” Edwards said. “That will be a great contest to have: let our customers name it.”